The alarm sprung me into action at 5:00am.
Saturday, October 8th had been on the calendar for some time. We had room for four in the Toyota Scion, but we settled for three. The line-up was the Chief Disciple, Johnnnno and YYYYYman and the destination was the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City.
AllinStevie stayed behind towatch the Yankee game, which ironically was rained out. By 5:55am we were all in the car rolling down the highway. The weather was crappy all day until the time I stepped back into the house at 8:00pm, but my peeps were gracious enough to stay awake and keep the Chief company while we took a (approx) 3 hour ride toAtlantic City from Long Island.
Of course we listened to some great music,had a few laughs and discussed this game of ours. We had targeted the 9:15am tournament which was a $100+25 buy in. We made it barely on time. Johnnnno and I chose to play, while yyyyyman played 2-4 Limit Holdem and also Omaha 8/B.
I got off to a great start. I was punishing the table in the first hour building the stack from 4,000 to 13,000. Johnnnno ended up at my table at first and watched it all unfold. I wiped a guy out early when my AA crushed his JJ on an all-in after the flop. I also bluffed a newbie out of a big pot, when a four-flush hit the board. I went all in with $10,000 in chips and she chose to keep her remaining 2,000 because her 3-hearts was not high enough.
She had told Johnnnno that after the hand. Her flush would have been good, since I was not holding a flush.We checked on Eddie during the break and it seems every time I went to see how YYYYman was faring, he was raking a large pot. I saw him win in Omaha hand with Aces-Full. It looked like a rather large pot with plenty of red meat ($5 chips) in the offering. WTG Eddie.
Meanwhile Johnnnno was folding a lot of hands and was wise to getout of my way, since I was on a good rush of cards. He managed to win a couple of big pots and built his stack up to my level. 130 people started and by the second break, there were about 40people left which included two disciples. Phil Helmuth described his 2005 WSOP demise by stating it was theworst "30 minutes of his poker life". (The WSOP big event starts onTuesday, by the way, so set your TIVOs.)
I can fully say with confidence that I know what Phil must have been talking about afterwhat was about to happen to me at the TROP. 18 places were paying with first place over $4,500. Up until this point my play had been pretty good and it was not my bad play that cost it. A Helmuth-type situation was about to unfold.
I was dealt the Rockets-Red-Glare (AA) in middle position. A guy who was already on tilt acted first with an all-in bet of about$3,500 in chips. Between blinds and antes and his bet, there was about $7,000 in the pot. It's folded to me and I did the obvious, going all in. Everyone else folds and we reveal our cards….He's on AJ to my AA making him a HUGE underdog. Flop comes J-J-Q…….Friggindagger in my heart. My Aces are cracked and a $10,000 pot goes his away. At this point, I still had about $9500 in chips or about 9 big bets.
Two hands later, I'm dealt AQ off suit. Again a short stack goes all-in and I go all-in while everyone else folds. This time, I'm superior to his J-10 off suit. The river brings a straight to the board 5,6,7,8,9….giving him a higher straight and crushing my AQ on the final card drawn. Boom, bad beat #2. Table is mumbling and sympathetic.
I take my bad beats like a man, refuse to go on tilt and people respected that. Final hand, I had about 6K in chips… I'm all-in with A7 against AK…Flop comes A, 7, Rag. OK, maybe I'm going to get luck…….$%#*&^. Nope, turn brings a King and the river runs dry for me. I'm gone in 38th place. Johnnno managed to grab around 25th. His final hands was pocket 10's and the guy got lucky with AQ on the flop nailing the Queen.Neither of us cashed. We all grabbed some lunch and went our separate ways in the afternoon. I toiled around the 2-4 table, but played very sloppy.
Johnnnno played some Black Jack and Eddie played some poker and some table games. The others managed to leave the Casino on the plus side, but I was not able to recoup the tournament buy-in. O well. It's days like these that remind you NEVER to quit your day job.And when the bad beats flow, I turn to the scripture of Greg Raymer…
"It's about good decision, not outcomes.
Chief
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